Blog by NASA PAO staff/ US Naval Air Reserve JO in 1970s; pedopriest survivor, and former flower child. Now in my 70s I'm a little old lady [LOL] with a laptop on a mountain just saying what I think.
In this Science Talk episode, host Dr. Muhammad Ittefaq and guest Dr. Peter Kalmus* discuss the role of media in pushing climate narrative, fossil fuel industry's propaganda, and how Republicans and Democrats are equally bad for climate change.
Transcript of entire show here, sample quotes below
WATCH: How Fossil Fuel Propaganda Shapes Republicans and Democrats | The Deadly Cost of Climate Change Quotes:
"The fossil fuel industry has been lying and blocking action, maybe if they hadn't, that hurricane would not have happened. Media need to let people know that 20:49 when you burn fossil fuels, you can think of it as like a ratchet. like every little bit that you burn, every gallon of gas, it's a little ratchet making the planet a tiny bit hotter." [More quotes below; transcript of entire 40 min program here]
I would love to see a ground swell of climate 32:46 scientists speaking out a lot more, speaking really clearly. Not telling the public to stay calm, right? That's the wrong message right now. I would love to see more climate scientists directly explaining that this is a human-caused problem and that the fossil fuel executives corporations have been lying to us for decades.
I used to have a 39:34 medium size microphone on Twitter until Elon Musk bought it. But even if I did, for somebody to actually hear what I'm saying, they would have to trust me. And right now, the working class right have essentially been divided by the wealthy class, by this billionaire class which owns a lot of the media, right? And so so I will be perceived by people on the right as someone as one of them as on the left. 40:08 Right? So it's very hard.
I think there's a connection between global heating and 40:58 the rise of fascism, this xenophobia, wanting to close borders, for example, this sense of fear that things aren't going well, which makes a populace susceptible to authoritarianism. Academics need to study that connection, cuz I think we're going to see, unfortunately, a lot more authoritarianism in the in the future as the planet heats up.
Read entire AI generated transcript w time codes at previous post
Transcripts here for readers writers and researchers
* American scientist and writer Peter Kalmus is a data scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and an associate project scientist at UCLA's Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science & Engineering
Transcripts here for readers writers and researchers
Welcome to science talk. As uh most of you know that earth is warming, temperature is increasing. Our planet is
0:07
uh heating or overheating. Sea level is rising and we are not doing as much as we should be doing to stop this uh
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madness as a humanmade disaster. Uh well uh don't listen to me or don't believe
0:20
me whatever I have to say but listen uh to my today's guest who is worldrenowned
0:26
climate scientist or sometime he refer himself his introduction as a data scientist who uses data to uh predict
0:34
and and model climate changes and how the earth ecosystem change over time and
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he works at NASA uh at one of the JPL as a lab and he uses satellite data and
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models to study rapidly changing Earth focusing on extreme heat and human health, ecosystem breakdown and severe
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weather. He has a PhD from in physics from Columbia University and BA from
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Harvard University where I'm sitting right now in the Harvard School of Public Health. Uh so without further
1:03
delay, I would like to introduce uh and welcome my guest Dr. Peter Kelmas. And
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Dr. Peter, thank you so much for joining me today and welcome to Science Talk. Thanks for having me. I should say I'm speaking on my own behalf too.
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Yes. So he is speaking on his behalf and these views of course does not represent
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uh NASA or Harvard where I'm sitting right now. It's just our own uh views whatever we have to say in this
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which which is kind of a shame because in my opinion our institution should be taking a firmer stance since the fate of
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our planet is at stake here. Yeah absolutely. I was literally thinking about that. Uh yesterday it's
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like you know what these uh oil and gas companies they pay a lot to their PR
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firms to lobby and to do propaganda and they own that and when we talk about
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climate change our institutions do not own that opinion which is kind of sad as you said. Yeah, it's interesting.
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There's this kind of interesting separation of powers that the formation of institutions kind of facilitate where
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um the status quo is very preserved by this dynamic, right? It's very hard to
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get institutions to make like very quick changes or to respond to something new
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coming that wasn't like wasn't there when they formed, right? So, um, yeah, I
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don't know like you something about the hierarchy and then like the people who are the directors, they're they're kind
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of chosen because they're somewhat conservative in their views and they're stable. They bring stability to the
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institution. And so then you have all these rules where the like the kind of working people in this institution might
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want to blow some whistles, but they're really suppressed. So it is a very interesting
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Yeah. And and that might be the reason that uh the scientists are not very effective convincing people or they do
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not have as much influence because the other side knows that oh these are
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professor bunch of scientists who are going to say things but the institutions do not support that opinion so maybe
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they don't have to act and it doesn't matter much as compared to if the institution itself take a position and
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you know do the same thing right and the institutions I'm thinking of like Harvard's a good example
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recently with uh you know the this Trump administration putting pressure on uh the American Geohysical Union has has
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kind of been very close to the fossil fuel industry for a very long time because some of its members are are geo
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uh scientists who are like involved in drilling for fossil fuels and so forth. And um the institutions the the heads of
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the institutions need to be and this is true of JPL as well of course like they have to be savvy of funding right so
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they have if you're the director of this big institution and you have a few thousand employees it's like a lot of
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mouths to feed and you have to be really careful to make sure the funding keeps flowing. So, you know, you can't piss
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off, for example, an administration or a Congress who might not whether they believe climate change is actually
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happening or whether they just say that it's immaterial, right? Their position is climate change isn't happening and
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they want to tamp down anyone who says that it really is. So, that puts the director of these institutions in a hard
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place, right? Right. And we saw this similarly with with Harvard uh when the administration was saying like you have
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to do X Y and Z otherwise we're going to so it's it's a form of uh extortion right financial extortion essentially
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and it forces these institutions to maybe make not the best long-term decisions for for the planet and
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humanity. Right? We're we're kind of it's like a mob mentality where like in a sense all of humanity is um being
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ransomed by like this class of people very very rich people who don't want to
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change social structures and who don't want us to do something about climate change.
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Absolutely. It's a very tough position. Yeah, it is. It is. Uh and that's the irony of our time uh we're living in. Um
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and so uh you you have explained this question in a BBC video in a wired and a lot of other places but like can you
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talk a little bit about like what is in a layman term so people understand what is climate change and why uh our planet
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is overheating. Yeah. So, it's interesting. I um you
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know, I've I've gotten sort of more interested in thinking about the social
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structures and how we can stop this because because I do feel like at some level we have enough science to know
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what we should be doing and we're not doing. But at a very basic level, uh when you burn fossil fuels, so oil, gas,
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coal, you're combusting that with oxygen and creating they're these carbon chain
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molecules, right? this stored energy basically stored energy of the sun like
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locked up in these carbon chains you you combust it with oxygen turns into carbon dioxide that goes into the atmosphere
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and the carbon dioxide molecule um interacts with infrared radiation quantum mechanically so just the
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vibrational modes of the CO2 molecule which is you know one carbon two oxygen
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in a certain configuration vibrates in a particular way um interacts with infrared radiation that's coming out
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from the Earth, right? So, if you think from the planet's point of view, there's two big ways that the planet interacts
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energetically with space, right? You've got the sun, you got sunlight coming in,
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and that heats the planet up, of course, cuz the planet's absorbing that sunlight, and then the planet emits
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infrared radiation in what's called it's what's called a black body. So anything with temperature is emitting like our
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bodies if you look at our bodies with an infrared camera we're emitting infrared radiation because um a particular body
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at a particular temperature emits radiation following a particular spectrum right so that infrared
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radiation coming from the earth's surface coming from the atmosphere coming from the clouds is going back out
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into space but those extra CO2 molecules trap that outgoing infrared radiation so
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not as much of it gets to space some of it gets gets remitted back down to Earth, right? So, you got the same
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amount of sunlight coming in, less infrared radiation going out. The temperature of the planet has to get has
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to increase. And then the hotter planet is going to emit more infrared radiation. So, you'll come back into
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equilibrium with the sunlight, but at a hotter temperature. But, of course, we're not at the point of coming back
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into equilibrium yet because we're still burning more fossil fuels. So, that's that's how the science works in a
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nutshell. And we've known about this uh since the 1800s. So um it's
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and we and we keep emitting those uh carbon emissions into the air and space.
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We're not stopping because if we want to reverse uh the climate change impacts, we have to take that um emission out of
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the uh out of the space which we already Yeah. And it's much much harder to do
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that than the fossil fuel industry would lead you to believe. So they talk about things like direct air capture, carbon
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capture, like uh basically using energy inputs to to pull carbon out of the
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atmosphere. Uh you would essentially there you know a few years ago um there
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was a big facility and I think Iceland that they made to pull carbon out of the
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atmosphere and they I think I'm not sure if it's still up or not. I haven't really kept tabs on it, but at the time,
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you know, it opened to much fanfare and uh I you know, they said how much CO2
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they could pull out of the atmosphere. And I was like, in one year, this thing is going to pull out 3 seconds worth of
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carbon emissions. So what humanity emits in 3 seconds, it would take this thing a
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whole year to pull out of that atmosphere. So you need millions and millions of those facilities. So that
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lets you know the scale. And then there's, you know, I I don't see many people point this out, but there's a
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huge uh ethical problem with this, right? It's like it's like you're going
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out to dinner with your grandchildren and it was really fancy, sumptuous
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dinner and then you just walk up and leave and like leave them with the bill because it's like saying we can admit
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now because our kids and our grandkids are going to spend most of their uh
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money, most of their economic activity is going to have to be in building these, you know, like millions and
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millions of these carbon plants to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere. Um, and that's going to be hugely expensive for
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them, but it means we can admit now. So, we're going to like keep partying and just like leave the next generation with
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the bill. It's deeply deeply irresponsible. And the the kids, the
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children, the next generation, the grandkids, they're going to be have to, you know, pay this bill at the same time
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that the earth is breaking down around them because of the party that we had. So, they're going to be having more hurricanes, more fires, more heat waves,
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more floods, right? their crops are going to be failing more because of the planet being hotter and yet we're
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expecting them to build all this this huge carbon capture infrastructure. So, it's it's so uh you know, it's pretty
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evil. Uh the thing the lynch pin for me on how evil it is of the fossil fuel
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industries to suggest this as you know is is it's a cynical ploy because it
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sounds good to a lot of people, right? So, it's a form of propaganda. Yeah. Sorry, I had to do that.
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No, absolutely. I I think that that's a great point to kind of having those discussions with the family members and
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with loved ones and you know because a lot of time we work as a scientist but like even our own families do not
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believe that we're going to leave that bill for the future generations, right? So like like we're not telling them like
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oh like we're going to having a party and this is like the the bill you're going to pay but it's like oh we'll deal
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with that when the time comes, right? So like how do you kind of talk with people
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within your own family who do not believe in climate change and who do not believe in that bill because they
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haven't seen that bill yet? Oh, excellent excellent question. Um sadly um I haven't made a lot of
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progress. So I am not I have not convinced a lot of people who are deep
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in climate denial to come out of that climate denial. It's surprisingly hard
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to get somebody to change their mind when they don't approach things like a
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scientist. So, yeah, by that I mean uh if they're if somebody is not willing to let new information
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cause them to change their mind, it's very very hard to get them to to change their minds. So, um I am I'm hoping that
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um you know that farmers, for example, they tend to be more on the conservative
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side, but they have to be on the vanguard of conservatives who realize
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that climate change is really happening, right? Because they maybe they can't grow the same crops that they used to
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grow or maybe now the planting dates have changed by several weeks, you know? So, uh I I'm kind of hoping that they'll
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start speaking up pretty soon. Um yeah, that's a great point. Uh because I just had actually last night a
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discussion with somebody uh we have a climate action week uh this week in at Harvard and one of the attendees she he
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was talking about he's like you know what where we should start about climate change is the farmers. It's like why is
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that? He's like because they're seeing that the crop they're not able to grow the same crops. the crops are not you
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know like holding up to the extreme weathers. So they are the one who some of them are like really educated some of
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them who are not educated but they see the impacts of climate change because they've been doing the same work over
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generations or over 30 40 years. So they see oh like for example I was not able
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to like you know grow these crops because of the change in pattern and like flooding and all these things. I
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was like, "Oh, that that's actually a great point." But as you said, they're not like we're not seeing much information coming from farmers saying
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that we are seeing this on social media, on mainstream media. It seems like that's the ignored part. And that may be
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because of the mass production of corporate farming and you know, we don't believe in this like you know those um
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farmers who used to grow their crops and everything and now it's like everything is corporatized kind of way that we it's
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a mass production of things. Yeah. Yeah. And the elephant in the room is the Trump administration and the
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Republican party. So if um you're a Republican farmer
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and you're like hearing all of this frankly propaganda, these lies from the
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Republican party about climate change not really happening and it being like a liberal or a Chinese hoax or whatever.
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Um that's a kind of gaslighting, right? because they're saying they're telling
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you don't believe your own eyes. So my question is to these to Republican
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farmers like when do you start believing your own eyes and saying and saying the emperor has no clothes, right? That you
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guys are full of crap because I'm seeing the temperatures increasing. I'm seeing changes in rainfall patterns. Um I, you
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know, have to change my farming methods and it's not just a one-year thing. It's
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been a trend over several decades. Um, so yeah, I'm really curious about that.
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I, you know, before this administration came back into power, I was sort of
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thinking that there would be some point in the near future where the
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conservatives, the Republicans would start to say like, hey, um, our leaders are wrong about climate change. It's
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really happening. And then suddenly the like Republican politicians would start,
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you know, would stop telling them these lies. But that certainly hasn't happened yet. And if anything, we're in an even
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deeper hole in terms of uh you know the ultimate distraction to worry to
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thinking about climate change and to wanting to solve it is to you know basically for you to feel that democracy
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is threatened. So I don't think very many people are talking about so like yeah I mean I wanted to ask that
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question later but like now it's a good transition to ask that question. It's like, yes, we know the climate deniers
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are in power and they're not going to believe it and they're going to spew that propaganda. But on the other side,
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if we look at the Democrats, if we look at Democratic Party, they do not have a very progressive, very active agenda on
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climate adaptation or mitigation either. So, where do we go? Honestly, like I've been like talking to other people. I
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think you had a chat with uh Dan Miller on a climate chat a while ago. He was also talking. He's like, I'm not like
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super optimist or hopeful from a Democratic party either. So, it's just not the one side, but the other side is
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like also they're just using it, but like they're not doing anything. Yeah, Muhammad, this is the hell I've
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been living in for 20 years basically. So, even when we've had Democrat presidents, they have done very, very
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little to stop climate change. Um, President Obama after he left office, he
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actually bragged at a lecture that he was the guy who incre increased uh the
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production of oil and gas in in America. So I think his exact quote was like that
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was me folks or something like that. So he wasn't interested after eight years of being in office, President Obama was
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not interested in taking credit for, you know, doing something about climate
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change. he was much more eager to take credit for in for making climate change worse by increasing oil and gas
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production in the United States. And then President Biden, I I would write oped after oped um urging him to declare
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a climate emergency and that never happened. Um, I am pretty I'm convinced
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personally that the recent Democratic presidents just didn't really understand
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at a core level how serious climate ch change actually is for the future of
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humanity. So, in other words, they just didn't get it. Um, and and you know,
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maybe it's to put yourself into their shoes like they have they they I think
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they're kind of forced to think in terms of the short term. Um, and they have,
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you know, all these corporate donors, so they have to think about winning elections, right? Um, so it's very hard
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for them maybe even if they did care at a personal level, which again I don't really think they did, but if they if if
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you know you were Democratic president, for example, and you really really wanted to do something about climate
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change, it might be I think you could do more than recent Democratic presidents
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have done, but I think your hands would be pretty tied in a lot of ways based on this the system as it's structured in
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the United States right now, which is a huge shame. Yeah, it's I think one of the potential uh
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reason or probable reason is that somebody was saying the other day um talking about climate change that
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politicians hate uh fundraising and when it comes in a in a chunk like 2 million
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3 5 million from anyone from corporate sector they love it but they hate asking you for 10 bucks 20 bucks 2,000 5,000 so
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it's easier for them to take money from these corporations and you know oil and gas companies and not to think about
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like you know voters who going to donate 10 bucks or 15 bucks because they don't like that. So maybe that's part of the
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reason that like you know I don't know but like maybe um that they they go with that always regardless in the power.
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You see this with mainstream media too, right? So um again it's like what we were talking about at the beginning this
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sort of institutional inertia. You see the New York Times, for example, running all kinds of ads all the time for fossil
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fuel corporations. Um, which I think causes them to be bi more biased in
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their reporting. Um, and so I don't feel like they typically, even the New York Times doesn't typically tell the whole
19:24
truth about climate change when they're reporting on, for example, a devastating flood. They don't typically say the
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reason this is happening is because the planet's getting hotter. the reason the planet's getting hotter is because of the fossil fuel industry. The fossil
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fuel industry has been intentionally blocking action, which is why we're in this predicament, which is going to get
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much worse. Right? So, so I always say there's there's three really key parts to any climate change disaster story,
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which typically get left out by journalists, even respected institutions like the New York Times. Those three
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things are um this is caused by the fossil fuel industry. The fossil fuel
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industry has been lying for decades and blocking action intentionally, right? Which is part of the story. That's why
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that's a big part of why this disaster happened. Context. Yes. Right. Yeah. Say there's a huge hurricane that wipes out a city. Like
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the reader is going to want to know why. And the article doesn't even talk about fossil fuels. Doesn't talk about the
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fact that the fossil fuel industry has been lying and blocking action, which is maybe if they hadn't been lying and blocking action, that hurricane would
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have happened. Would not have happened, right? And then the third thing that they typically don't say, sometimes they do say this third thing, but they need
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to let readers know that let the public know that this is going to get worse and worse obviously until we stop burning
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fossil fuels. And I want your listeners to know that uh and I don't think this is well appreciated by the public that
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when you burn fossil fuels, you can think of it as like a ratchet. like every little bit that you burn, every
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piece chunk of coal, every gallon of gas, it's like a little ratchet making the planet a tiny bit hotter effectively
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permanently, right? So, so however hot the planet gets is pretty much how hot
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it's going to stay to first order. Um, and the more as we burn more and more
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fossil fuel, that's that that temperatures it's going to go up. So, it's not a question of reducing our
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fossil fuel use, it's a question of ending it completely, right? which is why this is such a hard problem.
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Yeah. Um Yeah. And the the last thing your prompt made me think of is that, you know, it's
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very hard to see right now uh how we're going to get strong laws
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in the near future from Congress in the United States that will directly do
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things to transition us away from fossil fuels and towards say electric powered
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vehicles and other alternatives that will end our our our reliance on fossil
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fuels. But what's kind of encouraging is that I think uh the technologies that we
22:05
need to transition away from fossil fuels, for example, solar panels and and
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uh battery storage, they've gotten so much cheaper, so much more quickly than
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anyone predicted, say like 10 years ago, that now it's insane to to like produce
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electricity really any other way, right? And China gets this. So, so China is
22:28
eating our lunch right now because the economy of the future is not going to run on fossil fuels. It's going to run
22:34
on electricity produced by solar panels, right? And so that's the thing I think
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that's ultimately going to limit how hot the planet gets from uh from uh global
22:47
heating. Um, and right now, unfortunately, we have an administration
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that like like little toddlers throwing a tantrum. They're doing everything they can to block the adoption of these
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technologies which are obviously superior in every way and they're even cheaper now. Um, and I think it's mainly
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because um, well, it's for a lot of reasons, right? So you have legacy billionaires who want fossil fuels to
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continue because that's why they're so rich in the first place and you know their families go back many generations
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that if everyone can make their own electricity if it's like distributed then that
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that's sort of a loss of control right um so you know maybe that's me just being a little bit
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absolutely yeah but that's but to me that's one of the great things about it is that you know it's it's something that anyone can
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control you don't have to worry about some other entity like shutting off your power. So
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yeah, I I think like the Congress right now is like too busy like kind of uh trying to protect free speech and is
23:52
burning a flag constitute a free speech or not. They're like too busy doing that kind of stuff but not worried about the
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hurricanes and flooding and uh you know heat waves we're seeing more frequent and more intense. For example, right now
24:04
um I'm I'm originally from Pakistan and we have a huge devastating flooding right now where millions of people are
24:11
displaced and you know like we saw like the worst flooding in 2022 where like
24:17
33% of the country was underwater. Unbelievable. And then again after 3 years we still
24:23
again underwater. It's a huge amount of water and like there is no way because like literally those river beds are
24:30
gone. The rivers were dry and now all of a sudden monsoon and like you know cloud burst we see never saw that before and
24:38
when you were a kid did was it like this at all like what was it like when you were a kid? Oh my goodness. No like it was not like
24:44
that at all. It it like used to rain and pour like for days and days and now we don't see rain for months. And I I'm
24:52
from like I grew up at a farm like we had a a piece of land where we used to grow a lot of different crops but we're
24:58
not able to use grow the those crops anymore. And it's kind of like so like kind of sad to see how like the
25:06
government and people like especially the you know vulnerable especially women and children like literally dying and we
25:13
see videos kids are literally uh like towing their bodies of their like dead
25:19
mother in the water like by themselves like 8 10 years old and it's there is no
25:24
help because the countries like almost there's a report says like by 2050 you
25:29
have to spend 20% of your GDP on tackling climate change and there is no action uh unfortunately. So it's like
25:36
kind of so sad to see uh in terms of policy makers and media and those entities not like kind of you know who
25:43
are like kind of it seems like a nexus like not to do anything and block everything. So I just want to ask like
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on on a media part because I do a lot of uh kind of uh analyze how media talk
25:56
about climate change and yes the they have more frequent attributions that is
26:01
climate change is happening but like again there are a lot of pieces missing from these stories especially contextual
26:07
based uh information that why they don't frame it like you know why thematic
26:12
framing is still missing why we are seeing this and why uh how we can stop this uh but I I wanted to ask like about
26:19
cops a little bit about loss and damage fund and you know like how the rich global
26:25
north countries can uh you know or cannot do anything about helping those
26:32
global south countries which pollute less uh you know the environment and
26:37
clim like kind of contributing less uh CO2 uh emitting less but they're seeing
26:42
more uh extreme effects of climate change. So, how do you see cops? Do you think it's just a show that like all of
26:50
thousands of people just fly over and get together and like we put a CEO of a fossil fuel industry guy and then expect
26:57
something different as a result? Yeah, unfortunately that's exactly what I think it is. Um, I don't believe we're
27:04
going to have any meaningful progress at the international level until they
27:12
say no more fossil fuel corporation participation. And a year ago, I happened to meet John
27:19
Kerry, uh, the Secretary of State at the time, at an event, and he was, you know,
27:25
I think somehow involved in organizing the the comps. And I was like, hey, like
27:30
the the, you know, the biggest dele I kind of was talking to him like, you know, the biggest delegation at at the
27:37
conference of parties meetings is the fossil fuel industry. And I'm, you know,
27:43
I'm a climate scientist. I'm really worried we're not going to make progress until they stop calling the shots at
27:48
these meetings. It just seems really obvious to me they're not, you know, they're not good actors. They they're not acting in good faith. He got really
27:54
mad at me. He was like, um, what are you talking about? Uh, we've gotten more out
27:59
of the fossil fuel industry, this last cop, than we ever have before. Um, like they're an instrumental part of this
28:05
process or something like that. And my then then then he left. Like I just had a few seconds to chat with him and and
28:10
my mind was blown. And I'm like, I I had this similar feeling to when uh two
28:16
years into the first Obama term, so two two years into the Obama pres presidency when a light bulb clicked and I
28:23
realized, oh, he doesn't share my agenda. He does not share my progressive agenda
28:28
on climate change and that's why he's not doing anything. And it was the same thing with John K Curry. I'm like, oh,
28:34
like he doesn't he doesn't see the fossil fuel industry as a problem. uh which is crazy to me because there's
28:40
such a a huge mountain of evidence now, a huge paper trail, all these documents
28:46
that show that they've been uh systematically colluding with each other. Uh they they've been hiring some
28:53
of the best PR PR people in the world, the best lobbyists. They literally got together and said, "Okay, how can we the
29:00
public will start to to want to to transition away from fossil fuels when they realize that we're irreversibly
29:07
destroying the planet that they live on? So, how can we keep them from seeing that? How can we lie and prevent and how
29:14
can we undermine the scientists and make it seem like there's more doubt than there really is?" So, they've been
29:21
incredibly dishonest for decades. They haven't paid any price for that yet. They have not been held accountable for
29:27
what I think is probably the greatest corporate crime in the history of
29:32
humanity because it's like you you were talking about what's happening in in in Pakistan which is already in present day
29:40
incredibly horrifying and sad. What I'm trying to let everyone know is this is still just the beginning. It's going to
29:45
get worse and worse. I really believe that if we stay on the track that we're on, we're on in the process of seeing
29:53
billions of deaths. not millions of deaths, but billions with a B that because we're we're going to start
30:00
seeing crop failures. We're going to start seeing increasing famines. I mean, it's just it's sad to be talking about
30:06
this like this. Then we're going to we're going to see like the undermining of geopolitical stability which which I
30:13
feel is already starting to happen like already happening. Oh yes, absolutely. that Pakistan and India there are always
30:18
constant tension because India flood the water like they leave the water and it's going to like you know like increase the
30:25
level in the rivers in Pakistan and there's always like oh should we build the dams it's like we have indust water
30:32
treaty they always violate sometime they tell that we're going to release this amount of water sometime they don't so
30:37
there's always like a geopolitical tension between these two nuclear countries because of water because of
30:42
the weather patterns yeah I agree and and probably increasingly because of food, which is the same thing as water. Water basically
30:49
equals food. If you have water, you can grow food and if you don't, you can't. Increasingly,
30:55
heat's going to be more of a part of that equation, too. Like even if you have water, it might start to get too hot.
31:00
Yeah. In 2015, uh 1,500 people died in one city in Pakistan because of the heat
31:06
and the temperature goes like really 120 Fahrenheit degree in in uh and sometime it goes even 126 130 in some parts of
31:14
the country. And then, you know, you're you're kind of like your average white
31:19
person in the United States feels like it can't happen here, and they're wrong.
31:24
You're completely wrong. Um, yes, like I think extreme heat will get worse in the
31:30
subcontinent first. But it's going to get bad everywhere around the whole
31:35
planet, um, including in the United States. There's going to be, you know, I think in our lifetimes, uh, maybe even
31:43
relatively soon, we will start seeing heat waves with death tolls in the
31:49
millions. Yeah, we have never seen that before. What What do you suggest or think that
31:55
um because you you're a very strong activist and there are like very few voices unfortunately who are like have
32:01
some voice and they're not raising their voice. Um but what do you suggest or
32:06
recommend to uh scientists or institutions or academics to kind of do
32:13
more just not because it's more comfortable to do produce research you know like keep it in your desktop move
32:19
on get the grants get your life that's it it's more it's less comfortable being
32:25
arrested being you know raising questions being you know kind of able to protest so how do you kind of see that
32:32
as activism as an academic mix and how we should be doing things and what we're getting wrong and what we should be
32:39
doing more. Well, I would love to see a ground swell in scientists, especially climate
32:46
scientists speaking out a lot more. First of all, speaking really clearly and, you know, not telling the public to
32:54
stay calm, right? I think that's the wrong message right now. I would love to see more climate scientists really
33:01
directly explaining uh that this is a human-caused problem and that you know
33:07
fossil fuel executives and fossil fuel corporations have been lying for decades. That's really really important
33:12
for the public to know. Um I think there's a huge if if there's a chain
33:17
like that will lead us to responding to this problem in a rational way. there's a really big broken link which is that I
33:25
don't think the public knows that. So, let's say you're a person and you you realize that it's getting hotter and
33:31
you're worried about climate change. Um, you know, in in general, I don't think the public has enough awareness that
33:38
this problem is because of fossil fuel industry. Like, I've heard way too many
33:43
people tell me that like they they say like, "Oh, I like are are you worried about climate change?" And they're like, "Yeah." And I'm like, "Well, what do you
33:50
think we should do to stop it?" and they tell me we should recycle more. Yeah. Right. Like and my mind is just blown.
33:56
They don't say like, "Oh, we have to end the fossil fuel industry and transition to different forms of energy." Right.
34:02
Which is the correct answer. We don't even convince policy makers to adopt rational policy.
34:09
This is how irrational we are as as a kind of society right now, right? So the
34:15
contract is scientists, you know, funded largely by the government, government
34:20
grants are supposed to understand reality and if they see a problem,
34:25
whether it's like a pandemic or uh the earth getting too hot or, you know,
34:30
whatever it is, they sound the alarm and they go have, you know, the the most senior scientists go have meetings with
34:37
the president. This is like in the movies, right? And the president says, "Oh gosh, like this is a real problem."
34:42
And then, you know, maybe it's in the movie, it's too late. So, there's these disasters. But at least they they try to
34:48
do something about it. They don't say like, you know, oh, like, you know, screw you scientists. I don't believe
34:54
you. I'm going to like do my own research. I'm going to listen to these deniers. I'm going to like put somebody in charge of vaccines who's antivax.
35:01
Right? That's not supposed to happen. So, the contract has been broken, right? So, so scientists have to realize if
35:09
they care about this planet and if they care about their children, and I know they do, they can't wait for somebody
35:16
else to save us. And I I feel like scientists as a group, as a collective,
35:21
we would have a lot of power if we all with one voice started to to say what
35:28
was really going on. started to call out the fossil fuel industry and the politicians both in the Republican party
35:34
and the Democratic party who aren't doing enough um but especially the the actual climate deniers and you know
35:42
started and and then you know were able to let our emotions show a little bit so
35:48
that people who aren't scientists knew how serious we think this is right and
35:54
then potentially even engage in civil disobedience like I have and a few other scientists have. Um the civil
36:01
disobedience I've done uh has been the most effective way of communicating to
36:07
the public that this is actually an emergency. Uh it's better than writing
36:12
books. It's better than writing articles. It's a lot better than writing uh research articles about, you know, uh
36:19
coral reefs dying, for example, which is also behind the pay wall most of the time. But most of the time, yeah, increasingly I
36:25
think earth scientists are are publishing their work outside like outside of the pay walls. But but yes,
36:31
um but the public's not really going to sit down. You have a very small fraction of the public who's like reading
36:37
Scientific American listening to the Science Friday podcast, right? And they they kind of get it. they they they
36:44
might they might not read some of them may read the actual scientific papers, but they're going to be reading um you
36:51
know the New York Times article about the scientific paper. So they they get it. They probably understand that fossil
36:57
fuel industry is the main culprit here of of why the planet's getting hotter, but that's a tiny fraction of the
37:04
population, right? Or or maybe they or maybe they will read uh Fox News twisted headline from a
37:10
paper which has, you know, like very different meaning. But yeah, right. So this is my mom. So you asked
37:15
earlier like, "Have I convinced climate deniers in my life to that climate change is real?" So she thinks that I've
37:22
been brainwashed by the left to to believe in climate change. And that's so
37:27
I haven't made any really any progress with her cuz she does watch Fox News. Um
37:33
so yeah, Fox News is not going to probably have me on to talk about climate change um or or other scientists
37:40
like me. They they'll have there's a very small handful of of very either
37:46
misguided or uh greedy people with scientific credentials who
37:53
tell lies about climate change or minimize Yeah. or minimize dangers.
37:58
Yeah. The the sort of crank scientists and Fox News will have them on because they have the like PhD and they have
38:06
they were formally they have expert cues so people going to believe them. Yeah. But yeah, like for every one of
38:12
them, there's like 10,000 other climate scientists who uh who who say yes,
38:17
there's a huge amount of evidence that says the planet's getting hotter. That's what's causing the flooding. That's what's causing all this stuff. It's
38:23
going to get worse. It's caused by fossil fuels, right? So Fox News won't have them on.
38:28
So then how do you, you know, and even people who don't watch Fox News don't
38:33
really, you know, there's just so much confusion about the the planet getting hotter? Is
38:38
it getting hotter? What does that mean? How do we stop it? What where's this going to take us? And it's very hard
38:45
to get that to get the real information to a large number of people.
38:50
True. Um so like you're having me on your podcast. That's big struggle. That's why I
38:55
started like this work as a my outreach. I like you know what I'm writing papers. I'm trying to you know like talk to
39:02
people but maybe it's a good idea to raise awareness. I think like 10,000 people listen to me, 5,000 people listen
39:08
to me. Even they're not convinced, but I shared something, you know. Uh just keep like kind of inviting people, keep
39:14
talking about it with as many people as possible. Uh it's better to talk with one person than not talking to one
39:20
person, you know. Um and you never know. But before Yes. Go ahead, please. Well, I also the other piece like I
39:27
don't have access to to talk to a lot of those people. Like I don't have a that big of a microphone. Um, I used to have
39:34
a like a mediumsiz microphone on Twitter until Elon Musk bought it and uh but but
39:40
even if I did like for somebody to actually hear what I'm saying,
39:45
they would have to decide they trust me. And right now I I would say that
39:51
the the working class left and the working class right have essentially been divided by the wealthy class, by
39:57
this billionaire class which owns a lot of the media, right? And so so I will be
40:02
perceived by people on the right as someone as one of them as on the left.
40:08
Right? So it's very hard for me then to which is why like I would love to start
40:13
talking to I think some of the farmers uh who maybe already understand that the
40:19
earth is heating up because they could be really good messengers to people on
40:24
the right who would actually trust them. Yeah, that that's a good point. So before I let you go, um I just want to
40:30
ask one last question is what are some of the things or maybe one thing we're not talking about as a society? It can
40:37
be related to climate change or something else. Probably I would say we're not talking enough about how the the earth getting
40:46
hotter is leading to more far right uh kind of movements in various countries.
40:53
So, I think there's actually a connection between global heating and
40:58
the rise of fascism. Like this this xenophobia, wanting to close borders, for example, this like general sense of
41:05
fear that things aren't going well, which makes a populace susceptible to authoritarianism. And so, I think that
41:12
should be studied by a lot more academics, that connection, cuz I think we're going to see a lot more,
41:18
unfortunately, a lot more authoritarianism in the in the future as the planet heats up. Absolutely. Thank
41:23
you so much again uh Dr. Peter Kmas. It was honor uh absolutely honored to talk
41:28
with you and thank you for your time. Appreciate that. [Music]
All
Energy
Podcasts
Politics News
PW: Something strange is the massive amount of water from melting sea ice is not causing sea level to rise as quickly as expected. Where's all that water going?
PB: Think of the Gulf Stream. It moves to the north, to the east, over to Europe, brings a lot of warmth to Europe.
***
As polar glaciers thaw, gas that was sequestered in permafrost for thousands of years is leaking out at increasing rates, emitting Carbon Dioxide, Methane and Nitrous Oxide, the two latter being far more potent than CO2. A major Atlantic ocean current, the AMOC, is slowing down. If it shuts down, it will radically disrupt climate systems. Paul Beckwith and Peter Wadhams discuss the situation in the Arctic and in Antarctica with host, Dale Walkonen WATCH: Peril at the Poles- Facing Future channel Oct 3 report, transcript below:
.
PB: The warming greatly depends on the latitude. Closer you go to the Pole, the faster the warming, called Arctic temperature amplification. Ocean current slowdown is being attributed to the great warming.
PW: Recently, 3:26 we had even more of an impact, the explosions where large concentrations of methane were being emitted in an explosive way, leaving big holes behind. them where people wondered where those holes came from. All of this is unexpected and a function of emissions, which we don't know quite why they're so violently emitted. One of the problems today is the larger quantity of methane that's being emitted.
Transcripts here for readers writers and researchers
TRANSCRIPT: You can't easily model the way in which
0:03
the climate is going to be changing
0:06
during the next few years. And uh that
0:09
gives one a definite sense of
0:11
instability,
0:13
a sense of um not knowing what's coming.
0:16
Is it going to be some extreme heating
0:19
or cooling? Or is it going to be some
0:22
range of climate disasters? We just
0:25
don't know.
0:43
Welcome to facing future. I'm Dale
0:45
Walinan. With me today are Paul
0:48
Beckwith, climate scientist, and
0:51
professor Peter Watams, former head of
0:53
ocean physics at Cambridge University.
0:56
Um, today we're going to discuss all
0:58
matters Arctic and and climate. The
1:01
Arctic is at the forefront of the
1:03
climate crisis and its glaciers are
1:04
melting fast. Will there be an abrupt
1:07
thaw that suddenly triggers a tipping
1:10
point that threatens all life on Earth?
1:12
And is there anything we can do in the
1:14
climate crisis in general to mitigate
1:17
these effects or are we really facing a
1:19
catastrophe in the near future? Thank
1:22
you both for being here. Uh, wonderful
1:24
members of our team. Um Paul, would you
1:27
like to start?
1:28
Actually, I'd like to pass it over to
1:30
Peter because um I'm I'm very curious to
1:33
hear specifically about the Arctic
1:36
perafrost thaw. Um we're getting less
1:39
snow cover over the land in in certainly
1:42
in in spring, which means that the
1:45
Arctic is a much darker place. The it's
1:48
not reflecting as much sunlight. It's
1:50
absorbing a lot more with less sea ice
1:52
and less snow cover. And there's always
1:55
a concern about methane coming up in
1:58
large quantities to tip the climate
2:01
over. So let's I think starting with
2:04
Arctic perafrost and methane is a is a
2:06
good place. So So Peter,
2:10
great Peter.
2:12
Well, the uh the main problem with
2:15
Arctic methane is that there's so much
2:17
of it and it's just it's just
2:20
proliferating.
2:21
When um I started working on methane a
2:25
long while ago, it was something that
2:28
was a mild phenomenon that didn't seem
2:31
to mean too much. Then a lot of
2:35
intensive work was done on it by a group
2:38
from Russia and they were starting to
2:41
look at methane in places where it
2:44
wasn't expected to be that is uh in
2:48
mountains along the edges of ice sheets.
2:52
Suddenly methane was everywhere and now
2:55
we actually can see methane properly. We
3:00
can look at where it's coming from. It
3:02
seems to be being emitted pretty much
3:05
everywhere in the Arctic and this
3:08
methane is a very very climatically
3:11
active gas and so it doesn't help the
3:15
world if you uh have a large quantity of
3:19
the gas being emitted. So we really have
3:23
to worry about that. And then recently,
3:26
of course, we had even more of an
3:28
impact, which was the explosions
3:31
occurring where large concentrations of
3:34
methane were just uh being emitted in an
3:38
explosive way, leaving big holes behind
3:41
them where people wondered where those
3:44
holes came from. All of this is is
3:47
something which is unexpected
3:50
and is a a function of emissions which
3:55
we don't know quite why they're so
3:57
violently emitted. And uh one of the
4:01
problems today is the larger quantity of
4:05
methane that's being emitted. And we
4:08
wonder where that's coming from and what
4:11
it's doing. Well, of course, there are
4:13
many sources of methane uh methane uh
4:17
you wetlands of all kinds uh cowps
4:21
and uh are our own industries and so
4:24
forth. Um and we don't need any more of
4:26
it. There's also nitrous oxide that I
4:29
believe is emitted which is another
4:30
major problem from farmland and from
4:33
from perafrost.
4:35
And of course there's the Antarctic
4:37
which is the other question mark that we
4:40
have. Um Paul, I wonder what you have to
4:43
say about what's going on in Antarctica.
4:45
I think there's some new news from that
4:47
uh part of the world.
4:49
We've often thought that um climate is
4:52
changing everywhere on the planet
4:54
rapidly, but Antarctic's pretty pretty
4:57
uh solid place. Not much happening
4:59
there. It's very very cold continent.
5:02
80% of the global population lives in
5:04
the northern hemisphere. So, it's just
5:07
the Aussies and the Kiwis down in
5:09
Australia and New Zealand,
5:11
South Americans, and so on. But we're
5:14
seeing massive changes, abrupt changes
5:18
in Antarctica
5:19
in terms of sea ice loss specifically.
5:23
So, Antarctic sea ice was increasing
5:26
about 1 and a.5% per decade from the 70s
5:29
onward. And then suddenly something
5:32
seemed to break in the system around
5:34
2014 2015 and the sea ice area and
5:39
extent and concentration started
5:41
dropping off a cliff. Not just in the
5:44
Antarctic summer but also in the
5:45
Antarctic winter. And since 2015, the
5:50
loss of sea ice around Antarctica has
5:53
even exceeded the loss of sea ice in the
5:58
Arctic since the uh '7s. So it's
6:02
happening very very quickly. So I guess
6:04
the question the main questions are why?
6:06
Because when you lose a lot of sea ice,
6:07
you have to worry about how the ocean
6:10
circulation patterns change. So the sea
6:12
ice loss
6:13
and the warming in the Arctic, which
6:15
many people, at least mainstream science
6:18
now says the Arctic's warming four times
6:21
faster than the global average. What's
6:24
happening in reality is the warming
6:26
greatly depends on the latitude. The
6:29
closer you go to the pole, the warmer
6:30
the faster the warming. It's called
6:33
Arctic amplification. I prefer the term
6:35
Arctic temperature amplification.
6:37
But Antarctic has come up and surprised
6:40
us. So the ocean currents, the AOK has
6:42
slowed down. That's being attributed to
6:45
the great warming and fresh water
6:47
entering the Arctic region from melt and
6:50
uh reducing the strength of the AOCH.
6:53
But also but the Smok has slowed down
6:56
significantly as well, which surprises a
6:58
lot of people because many people sort
7:00
of assume that with the AMO slowing down
7:02
the Smok would increase to compensate,
7:05
but we're not seeing that happen right
7:06
now. Also, I think people need to
7:09
remember the sea ice in Antarctica is
7:11
much much further from the pole than it
7:14
is in the Arctic. So, when we lose that
7:16
sea ice around Antarctica, the radiative
7:19
effects, the albido effects become that
7:22
much more important because there's a
7:24
lot more sunlight when you're away from
7:26
the pole than it is right at the pole.
7:29
So, we're seeing massive changes to the
7:32
the overall climate system. I mean,
7:35
climate change is definitely
7:36
accelerating.
7:38
The radiative forcing is much higher. We
7:41
seem to be having fewer clouds, which
7:44
means that more sunlight is hitting the
7:46
Earth. Albido of the Earth is the Earth
7:48
literally is becoming a darker place,
7:50
right? It's darker. It doesn't it
7:52
absorbs more sunlight and and
7:54
well, some of the clouds are beneficial
7:56
to us and some types of clouds, the
7:58
higher clouds
7:59
actually are detrimental. So, it depends
8:02
on the cloud.
8:02
We're losing the beneficial ones.
8:04
Unfortunately, the the
8:06
Yeah.
8:07
And and Peter, you've often talked about
8:09
the blue ocean event in the Arctic. Um
8:13
do you see that coming upon us?
8:16
Um well, not as not as quickly as I
8:19
previously thought. A blue ocean event
8:21
would be just when all the sea ice goes,
8:25
bringing a large amount of open water
8:28
from the melting of the ice and the
8:31
result would be pretty catastrophic.
8:33
except that it's not happening. It's not
8:36
happening to that extent. And also um
8:40
something that sort of strange is the
8:43
fact that the massive amounts of
8:45
additional water coming into the ocean
8:48
from melting sea ice is not causing sea
8:51
level to rise as quickly as one
8:54
expected. Given the production that's
8:57
going on, I would have expected us to be
9:01
experiencing a greater rate of sea level
9:04
rise than we're actually seeing. So, it
9:07
was a interesting question is where's
9:10
all that water coming from?
9:12
Well, we've of course between the two
9:15
poles is the Amok. If that collapses, it
9:19
would warm the Arctic. And what would
9:22
happen in Antarctica? No, if it would if
9:25
if think of the Gulf Stream,
9:27
it would cool the Arctic.
9:28
Sorry. Right.
9:29
Think of the Gulf Stream. So, if it
9:31
moves to the north, to the east, moves
9:33
over to Europe, Northern Europe. It
9:36
brings a lot of warmth to Europe, right,
9:39
in the waters, and then it turns and
9:41
goes into the Arctic. And when sea ice
9:44
is being formed, it rejects about half
9:47
of the salt. Then the other half is in
9:50
brine pockets within the ice which
9:52
eventually then drains out. But it takes
9:54
several years to do that making the ice
9:56
sort of pure and pure just water and and
9:59
less brine pockets inside. But the water
10:02
left over when the ice is forming on the
10:05
fringes is um very salty and it's also
10:08
cold. So it's heavy. So it sinks down to
10:11
the ocean floor. And uh that happens at
10:14
both poles. And that overturning
10:16
circulation is crucial for the climate
10:19
system because the water at the surface
10:22
is oxygenated
10:24
and it's got a lot of carbon carbon in
10:28
it. CO2 dissolved CO2 in it. Carbonic
10:31
acid creating the ocean acidification.
10:34
But when the water descends down to the
10:36
deep, it takes the carbon down and it
10:39
takes oxygen down. Both of which are
10:42
important. The carbon going down means
10:44
that the oceans are carbon sink. About
10:46
half of human emissions,
10:49
about half of anthropogenic emissions
10:52
are absorbed in the ocean very quickly
10:55
and by this process taken down to the
10:58
deep ocean floor. So with less vertical
11:00
mixing in a more stratified ocean, you
11:03
get less oxygen at the bottom, which is
11:05
very detrimental to marine life that
11:08
lives on the bottom. It's also very
11:10
detrimental to us because the oceans are
11:13
no longer such a powerful carbon sink.
11:15
The ocean overturning is is pretty vital
11:19
for our present day existence on this
11:22
planet. When it stops happening, then
11:26
everything changes. it becomes much more
11:28
difficult to grow food. I would imagine
11:31
um it feeds into the atmospheric wind
11:33
circulation patterns. You know, you have
11:35
to look at sort of the earth as a heat
11:37
engine. The equator is hot, the poles
11:39
are cold. Heat wants to move from the
11:42
equator to the poles. It does so in the
11:44
ocean currents. It does it also in the
11:46
atmospheric wind patterns. And then when
11:49
the whole system is working as a finely
11:52
oiled machine if you like the climate
11:55
system then you know we have climate
11:57
stability but we're losing that climate
12:00
stability and it becomes much more of a
12:03
chaotic nonlinear system. So we you
12:06
we're really we don't really know what's
12:08
going to happen but we do know that in
12:10
the past the AOCH has collapsed and we
12:14
know that certain changes occurred on
12:16
the earth and we do know that when
12:18
carbon reached a certain level certain
12:20
changes are clear in the geology. So it
12:23
isn't a blind game entirely but there is
12:26
so much it's so complex that it's it's
12:30
hard to say what will happen when. Uh,
12:33
Peter, how do you feel about what's
12:36
going on and how's this affecting you as
12:38
you've been working on this for so many
12:40
years?
12:41
Well, yes. Um, well, it's it's very it's
12:46
very worrying because the mechanisms
12:49
that Paul has discussed are liable to
12:52
give us streams of weather that we don't
12:55
expect and might be really extreme and
12:59
be unexpected as well.
13:02
We can't easily model the way in which
13:05
the climate is going to be changing
13:07
during the next few years. And uh that
13:11
gives one a definite sense of
13:13
instability,
13:15
a sense of um not knowing what's coming.
13:18
Is it going to be some extreme heating
13:21
or cooling? Or is it going to be some
13:24
range of climate disasters? We just
13:27
don't know. And we haven't been in that
13:30
position for a long time. We've been
13:33
able to predict more or less how things
13:36
are going to change and now we can't. So
13:39
I'm very worried about that.
13:42
Uncertainty is always very disturbing.
13:44
I'm surprised that you're as uncertain
13:47
as I am uh being more informed. But um I
13:52
think we all are in a state of of um
13:55
uncertainty and now we have this insane
13:56
administration in America which is
13:58
making us all extremely worried because
14:02
they're they don't seem to have any
14:04
understanding whatsoever and are not
14:06
even the US is not even attending the
14:08
climate talks in November. So um in
14:11
America it's a kind of a dark time and
14:14
I'm sure you're both grateful not to be
14:16
here.
14:18
Um anyway um thank you both uh for this
14:22
discussion. We we covered a lot of
14:24
topics and um I it's I really appreciate
14:28
you're you're both participating in
14:30
facing future.
14:32
Thank you D.r
14:44
Oh yeah.
14:59
***
Peter Wadhams ScD is emeritus[1] professor of Ocean Physics, and Head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge. He is best known for his work on sea ice.Facing Future
Peter Beckwith Physicist, Engineer, and professor at the University of Ottawa
***
FacingFuture.TV hosted by Dale Walkonen and founded by Stuart Scott, gives voice to scientists & climate activists, historians & futurists, economists & philosophers.
He
The fingerprint of climate change is all over this "blob," scientists say. It may fade as winter storms release heat into the air. But if it sticks around, it could bend the jetstream and high altitude winds that steer storms. And it could reshape winter weather across North America.
This “blob” of unusually warm water pushed Japan into its hottest summer ever, with a new record of 107°F set in August.
WATCH: From Japan to US: Record Breaking Marine Heatwave Engulfs Pacific Ocean | Planet Pulse- Firstpost Oct 4 report transcript below
Here is CNN report from 2 weeks ago and Washington Post from yesterday so yes this is true.
TRANSCRIPT:
Transcripts here for readers writers and researchers
The Pacific Ocean is heating up, and not
0:03
just in one spot. A massive,
0:06
record-breaking marine heat wave is
0:08
stretching nearly 5,000 miles from
0:12
waters near Japan all the way to the US
0:15
West Coast. Scientists call it a blob of
0:19
warm water. But this one is so huge,
0:22
it's rewriting records and raising
0:25
alarms.
0:27
Imagine
0:32
this. A stretch of ocean the size of a
0:35
continent running thousands of miles,
0:37
shimmering with unusually hot water.
0:41
That's what scientists are tracking
0:43
right now in the North Pacific.
0:46
This heat wave isn't just breaking
0:48
records, it's smashing them.
0:52
Sea surface temperatures across the
0:54
basin hit their highest August levels
0:56
since the late 1800s.
1:02
The effects are already showing around
1:04
Japan. These hot waters fueled the
1:06
country's hottest summer on record,
1:09
pushing the mercury to a scorching 107°
1:13
F.
1:15
On the US side, the same heat wave is
1:18
pumping moisture into California's
1:19
skies.
1:21
It is raising humidity and setting the
1:23
stage for wetter winters if it lingers.
1:26
But what makes this event different is
1:29
its sheer scale. Normally marine heat
1:31
waves appear as blobs, patches of warm
1:34
water.
1:36
But this time, the entire North Pacific
1:38
basin is involved. On weather maps, it's
1:41
a giant red streak stretching across the
1:44
ocean.
1:46
And scientists are worried because we've
1:48
seen this before.
1:50
Between 2013 and 2016, a similar blob
1:54
wre havoc on marine life.
1:57
Millions of seabirds called common murs
1:59
died.
2:01
Sea lions and fish populations crashed
2:04
and the ecosystem struggled to recover.
2:10
Today, experts are already spotting
2:12
troubling signs.
2:14
In Alaska, wildlife officials report
2:16
more dead seabirds and fish washing
2:18
ashore this summer.
2:20
The numbers aren't as catastrophic as
2:23
2015, but they are spread across more
2:25
species.
2:29
So, why is this happening? The answer
2:31
lies in the winds. Normally, winds can
2:34
churn the ocean and bring cooler waters
2:36
from the deep.
2:38
This process is called upwelling. But
2:41
this year, the winds have been weak or
2:43
blowing the wrong way.
2:49
Without that natural cooling, the ocean
2:51
surface gets hotter and hotter. Add
2:54
human-driven climate change to the mix,
2:56
and the problem grows.
2:59
The North Pacific has warmed faster than
3:02
any other ocean in the past decade.
3:06
Scientists say the fingerprint of
3:08
climate change is written all over these
3:10
heat waves.
3:15
The big question now is how long will
3:17
this blob last?
3:19
Some oceanographers believe it may fade
3:21
as strong winter storms stir the waters
3:24
and release heat back into the
3:25
atmosphere.
3:28
But if it sticks around, it could bend
3:30
the jetream or the high altitude winds
3:33
that steer storms. and it could reshape
3:36
winter weather across North America.
3:40
For marine life though, the risks are
3:42
immediate.
3:45
Hotter oceans mean stressed fish
3:47
populations
3:48
and ripple effects that travel all the
3:50
way up the food chain from plankton to
3:52
predators.
3:55
The Pacific Ocean in many ways is
3:57
running a fever.
4:00
Like any fever, it's a warning sign.
4:05
The oceans are heating faster and the
4:07
heat waves are lasting longer.
4:11
And the impacts are spreading from the
4:13
sea to the skies.
4:16
Scientists say what happens out there
4:18
will not stay out there. It's a climate
4:22
story unfolding in real time and it
4:24
affects us all.
4:30
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4:31
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